Defining ontology combining concepts of massive multi-player online role playing games and organization of large-scale multi-agent systems

Abstract

Large-scale multi-agent systems (LSMAS) development methods are becoming a necessity in a world of ever growing numbers of computer agents incorporated in various devices and services used by people in all areas of life. Organization in such large-scale systems, becomes therefore a very relevant concept in research on LSMAS, as the mentioned agents are expected to cooperate, compete, and share information, hence improving quality of peoples' life. An example application domain of LSMAS are massive multi-player online games (MMOG), and their specific genre — MMO role-playing games (MMORPG). MMORPGs provide us with the opportunity to study both large-scale virtual interaction of players (agents), and coordination of large-scale distributed artificial intelligence. In this paper, we will present an ontology of organizational concepts, suited for LSMAS development, merged with an ontology containing elements of a specific MMORPG. Combining these two ontologies with a special accent on identifying elements and aspects of organization, will hopefully present us with a basis for LSMAS structures which follow organizational constraints and are suitable for LSMAS development in the MMORPG context.